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Judge commits minister to psychiatric ward
By William Kaempffer, Register Staff
02/20/2007
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-NEW HAVEN — A colorful and outspoken minister who was arrested last year after refusing to show police his identification has been committed to a psychiatric hospital by a Superior Court judge after a mental health panel concluded he was not competent to assist in his defense.


But the Rev. Charles Hart of Meriden — who in representing himself over the last 11 months has peppered the court with perplexing legal motions, letters and demands — insists that he is fine. He claims his committal was the judicial system's last-ditch, corrupt effort to railroad him into accepting a plea bargain.

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"It's just not fair. I'm not a criminal," said Hart, 48, in a telephone interview from a psychiatric ward at the Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown. "Look at me now, how they got me up here in this place to drug me up, to say that I'm crazy.

"I will not take one of their pills. I will not take one of their medications."

He remains unwavering in his effort to have a jury trial, which he asserts authorities refuse to allow because they know he will win.

"This judge has committed treason against the American people," Hart said.

"We come to him looking for justice, and this is what we get from him, thrown into a mental institution and taken out of our homes."

What started last March as a potentially groundbreaking, Fourth Amendment case exploring an individual's right to refuse to show police identification, now appears to have spiraled out of control.

Judge Peter Brown, after more than 20 contentious and sometimes confusing court dates in the case, last week ordered Hart committed for psychiatric treatment for as many as 60 days. A panel of clinicians for the Connecticut Mental Health Center examined the minister and determined he wasn't competent to stand trial.

What preceded that was a series of court motions by Hart citing admiralty law, contract law and the Uniform Commercial Code, personal letters to judges, denunciations of the legal existence of the United States and Connecticut and interjections of "freeman" language often espoused by antigovernment militias in the Midwest. Hart has been thrown out of the courthouse after being beligerent with court clerks, the file shows.

He had steadfastly refused to have an attorney represent him — saying last week that he found no one "competent" enough to handle his case — and said he won't cooperate with the public defender the court this month assigned to him.

Hart was arrested March 5, 2006, after police approached a group of men hanging out in the 500 block of Winchester Avenue, an area known for drug activity. Hart, who said he was merely talking to his brother who lives in the area, refused a request to show ID and challenged the officers to arrest him.

Hart was charged with interfering with police and loitering near a school. He later picked up additional charges of failure to appear in court and driving with a suspended license.

In one of his many filings, in an apparent effort to prove the state had no jurisdiction to prosecute him, Hart last May denounced the "corporate existence," among other things, of the United States, the state of Connecticut, the county, the Police Department, the court system and its agents, all bar associations, himself and "all other corporate members who are, or may be, associated with any complaint against my natural body."

That drew a sharp response from Judge Joan Alexander.

"That has no meaning. When you have a notice on the admiralty side of this court, that has no meaning," she said.

Judge John Blawie, a month later, implored Hart to get an attorney after the minister again began arguing UCC and admiralty maritime law.

"You are a functioning member of society; I think you are smarter than you are trying to make yourself appear, sir. You have to get a lawyer."

Norm Pattis, a prominent civil rights and defense attorney who reviewed a collection Hart's filings at the request of the New Haven Register, said the minister's choice to represent himself is nothing short of "suicide."

In the judge's shoes, he said, "I would ask that the man reconsider the decision to represent himself. This is suicide. ... I can certainly understand why the court made a decision to have him evaluated."

Hart remains unswayed.

He maintains his legal arguments are sound and asserts that the judges know it, too. But if authorities dismiss the case, they know it will open them up to a civil rights lawsuit, claimed Hart, who in addition to his ministry works as an in-take worker for an Access to Recovery program in Ansonia.

He fears he will be unemployed when he finally gets out and worries that his family has lost its breadwinner.

"I'm sitting in a mental institution. I've been taken away from my home, my wife, my children, my job. For what?"

He answered his own question a moment later.

"I'm in here because I wouldn't show two officers my ID because they didn't have probable cause," he said.

Yes that sounds about right, what would you expect from a tyranical government?


The best part of it is his next Court Date:Next Court Date: 1/2/2020 10:00 AM